These Four Walls
by xxBurningxx
Summary: [Lapidot AU] "But I don't think I quite understood the full weight of what our ruler was asking—because if I had, if I'd actually comprehended what the tyrannical leader's veiled words meant, I don't think I would have been able to allow Lapis into that elevator." In which Lapis is a prisoner on Pink's spaceship and Peridot is one of her COs.


**Author's note: Vague, pretty open-to-interpretation non-canon AU where Lapis is a prisoner on one of Pink's interdimensional creature collection spaceships and Peridot is a part-human commanding officer on said ship.**

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"I'm sorry," I said, as my voice assumed the quiet identity it did every time we had to do this.

"I know," she responded, neither rejecting nor denying the apology. We both knew it wasn't okay. I could taste it in my throat, the way it burned the edges of my taste buds as the syllables rolled off my tongue. My pale fingers squeezed the heavy metal in my palms—the metaphorical avil that weighed heavy on both of our souls. "Just do it," she barked, startling me.

My gaze did an uncomfortable little dance to avoid her perfectly cerulean irises but I lifted the collar up to her throat anyway. It was mechanical. Automatic. The way my hands securely fastened the device around her soft skin, hooking the latches in place and making sure the odd buttons aligned up. And it sat in my gut, a deep and unnerving thing, the gnawing awareness that she knew my fingers flew over the collar with practiced ease. My hand lingered even after the job was done, finding itself hovering over her pulse and letting it thump against my fingertips.

"I'm sorry," I reiterated dumbly.

"Stop saying that."

"I don't know what else to say." And wow, I hadn't meant for my voice to sound so pitiful, so small. It immediately sent a jab of self-loathing down my spine; I was far from a position to sound like the victim, unintentional as my tone had been.

Maybe she saw a ghost flicker across my face, because when she spoke again, it was softer and maybe a little defeated. "J-just..."

I finally gathered the courage to look up at her, but now she was playing my game, avoiding my undoubtedly tired-looking eyes. "I know this isn't your fault," Lapis finally said, lifting a hesitant hand as though she may touch my arm, but then seemed to reconsider and dropped it. I frowned.

"I'm... doing the best I can?" I said, but it accidentally sounded like a question. Like she was a bum on the street I tossed a penny at even when I had a wallet flush with cash tucked away in my pocket—surely that's what this must have seemed like to the frail woman in front of me. I waited for the accusation I deserved.

"You do a lot for me, Peri," she whispered instead, at last looking at me straight. I found myself slipping away to another dimension for the briefest of seconds in those endlessly blue eyes. But that second was all I allowed myself, because I knew the proverbial clock was pounding in both of our ears at that point. I could feel the warmth rising to my cheeks.

"Don't reward me for what I... _don't_ do to you," I said sternly, but I could hear the wilted strain in my voice. I looked down at the little remote strapped on my belt.

"Excuse me if I prefer to be a bit pleased that you aren't zapping me with 1,000 volts of electricity right this instant," she replied, and I could hear the faintest hint of a smile in her words. That little gleam of humor was just a miniscule fragment as to why I was there at that moment, why I was spending approximately three and a half extra minutes in a cell with the prisoner when I should have had her checked in at processing already.

"Come on," was all I said, tugging on her wrist all the way to the door, savoring just that little bit of contact. _How pathetic_ , I heard some vacant voice in the back of my thoughts mutter. _I know,_ I replied to myself, dropping the grip as I jabbed in a few codes on my arm tablet which promptly unlocked the door.

My heart jumped in my throat when I was immediately greeted with the lumbering brute of an imbecile that was my commanding officer on the ship: Jasper. She shot me a big ol' grin, which had the possibility of being construed as friendly, _if_ it had been offered by literally anyone else.

"What took ya so long?" she asked, and I could see the trace of that perpetual maliciousness snaking around in the back of her amber irises. "Gettin' a bit frisky with the prison bait?" she suggested, waggling her eyebrows at me, and suddenly I couldn't breathe. The thought was as flustering to me as it was alarming, and I stared, wide-eyed. It wasn't as though Lapis and I had ever done anything to begin with, ever, period! And yet, I was the child caught dipping her dirty paws into the cookie jar before dinner, and I was convinced Jasper would be able to read my startled nervousness like an open book. I sensed the blue-haired spirit behind me fidget and I wondered if her face was nearly as on fire as mine currently felt.

But then Jasper blew her gasket and I actually flinched (as though she may hit me, although I guess that wasn't much of a drastic reaction when I really think about it) until I realized she was laughing, not bellowing at me. She was just... a very loud individual.

"Oh man!" she wheezed. "You shoulda seen your face!" I watched her wipe away tears from her eyes, even though I didn't think this woman was physically capable of shedding tears. I awkwardly glanced back at Lapis but she merely had her wrist clasped in front of her and her eyes trained on the floor. I couldn't see if she was blushing or not, but I supposed that was the least of my worries as Jasper continued.

"Nah," she drawled, finally calming down. "I couldn't imagine you getting it on with a non-existent dust bunny," she scoffed. "Much less a lil' hottie like this." I felt something fierce bubbling in my stomach at the larger woman's words. I felt something even fiercer when Jasper stepped forward and gripped Lapis's face in her meaty hands, dragging the spirit's chin up and sizing her up.

"U-uhm," I coughed, hoping to keep a lid on whatever fiery emotion was churning and licking at the walls of my throat. "Code 104.2 explicitly states that touching the produce is prohibited." I tried not to think about how I had just been violating said code a few minutes ago, within the privacy of Lapis's cell.

Jasper scowled at me but stepped away from the spirit, and I could actively feel that sensation simmering down as she did so. I didn't want to dwell over what that meant. I didn't want to consider how deep of an emotional grave I'd dug for myself here. So I focused on the ugly way my superior's face contorted at me, as though I was scum beneath her feet. I was almost certain the only reason she listened to me is because she knew I wasn't above ratting her out to Pink Diamond, the facility ship's captain.

"Whatever." Then she was stomping away, and I quickly followed suit, Lapis on my heels despite the fact that I knew she was dreading this. I was too. It was insane how much of a prisoner I'd become to it all of it at that point; her pain was my pain.

There were often times that I'd lose sorely-needed hours of sleep worrying about what may be happening to her when I wasn't the officer on shift for her floor. I knew it wasn't pretty; I knew what the brutes liked to do when they got to run their rounds. And I was keenly aware of the way Lapis tried to hide it, sweep the broken remnants of the vase under the rug... but I could see the physical evidence painted on her skin sometimes.

And it hurt.

It made me want to curl up into a ball and cry, and then I'd ask myself when I got like this—when _emotions_ were suddenly so prevalent in my life and whether it was a good or bad thing, whether it kept me alive or spelled imminent despair.

I felt the softest graze of Lapis's hand against the small of my back and I jumped slightly, glad Jasper was chugging along far enough ahead that she wouldn't notice. I had to swallow a mild smile when she traced out a double circle against my uniform— _our symbol_ — and I swore that woman could pick up on my emotions because the gesture immediately soothed my worried brain and sent a pang of something light and airy through my chest.

We wandered down the hallway, passing by cell after cell after cell, mutant after spirit after you-name-it. Whatever bizarre entity Pink could possibly get her hands on to add to her collection. We made the occasional stop, Jasper gathering up a handful of inmates that needed to be taken down to processing as well, until we found ourselves packed into an elevator which would take us into the deepest bowels of the spacecraft. I idly tugged at the electronic gadget in my forearm, feeling my nerves beginning to buzz as we descended further.

And I'd known what was coming. I'd seen the request papers.

But I don't think I quite understood the full weight of what our ruler was asking—because if I had, if I'd actually comprehended what the tyrannical leader's veiled words meant, I don't think I would have been able to allow Lapis into that elevator.

The electric lift offered a dull little chime as it stuttered to a halt, filling up the tense silence between the six of us (myself, Lapis, Jasper, a bright-eyed reptilian man, a floating fire spirit, and finally a battered-looking mutant), and I thought it sounded a bit like Charon ringing a bell to let us know we'd safely made it across the Styx. I wondered if that's what it felt like to these prisoners.

The brightly lit hallway we spilled out into carried the pungent odor of chemicals and things I wasn't classified to say. And I swear I could already feel it then, the tiny newborn bird of doubt and unease that wriggled in my stomach as we trailed along until we were met with a formidable doorway plastered with dual toxic-yellow warning signs. Jasper glared at me, prompting me to work my technical magic and open the lion's maw to swallow up the hodgepodge of prisoners that probably didn't deserve what awaited them. At least, I know Lapis didn't. I can't speak for the others.

I lead them into the containment chamber where a woman came out and started calling names, lining them up one-by-one by the laser scanner against the wall. Once that was all sorted out, it was time for them to go down their cattle shoots into the realm where no good things occur. This was something I didn't have to clearance to tag along for, which Jasper mockingly displayed her knowledge of with a smug grin as she began ushering them into another room.

Lapis, at the end of the line, looked at me. I saw everything then. I saw the unspoken words shimmering in her oceanic eyes, as well as the unshed tears, and I saw the way her hands came together for all of one second to mimic our two-handed symbol we'd come up with one day in the cosmic courtyard for shits and giggles. And I saw her lips mouth three simple words that left the entirety of my soul an inferno I could never pull myself out of. Three unspoken syllables that would forever resonate with me, even in the darkest of my nightmares.

And that?

That was the last time I ever saw Lapis Lazuli.

* * *

 **I had initially planned to have this be a full two or maybe three-shot, but I kind of enjoy the amorphous ending this has and I think I'll leave it be for now.**


End file.
